The Congolese Ministry of Health lifted the veil on Tuesday, December 17, on the nature of the condition, which has claimed dozens of victims in just over a month in a remote region of the country.
“The mystery is finally solved.” The Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo announced on Tuesday, December 17, that the unidentified disease circulating in the country was a serious form of malaria. Local authorities announced earlier this month that this disease had killed 143 people in November in Kwango province, in the southwest of the country. “This is a case of serious malaria in the form of a respiratory disease. the Ministry of Health said in a statement. He also specified that 592 cases had been recorded since October 2020.
According to the first available data, the disease particularly affected the youngest, with 40% of cases involving children under 5 years old, with symptoms similar to those of the flu: fever, cough and headache.
Last week, the Democratic Republic of Congo declared that it was in “maximum alert” after the detection of this disease, the Minister of Health reporting dozens of deaths in just over a month, after the first cases detected at the end of October. The phenomenon was described by health authorities as “an unknown public health event”, located in the remote region of Panzi. It is difficult to access, with almost non-existent health infrastructure, and a lack of access to water and medicine for the population.
The DRC has already been hit hard in recent months by the mpox virus with more than 1,000 deaths. Among the poorest on the planet, the country has recently seen the number of cases of this disease – formerly called monkeypox – decrease slightly.
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